NBC Local Stations Struggle to Find Olympics Gold

Despite the fact that NBC seemed to have no problem reaching its $1 billion goal for Olympic ad sales, the NBC-affiliated stations of Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst-Argyle Television and Belo have not had it so easy - all have reported struggling to reach their Beijing Olympics ad goals.

The chairman of the NBC affiliates board says that, while the network had “a great Olympics year,” affiliates are more of a mixed bag, with some doing great and others “not doing great,” writes Broadcasting & Cable.

The News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting’s KTVZ in Bend, Oregon, for example, is pushing only a 50 percent sellout rate.

NBC-owned stations, on the other hand, are on pace to exceed their ad sales goals and, as of today (Monday), were nearly sold out.

Ad rate researcher SQAD looked at markets where NBC owns stations and found that costs-per-points are up between 1 percent and 10 percent since June, in key adult demos. “It’s not bad,” Neil Klar, president and CEO of SQAD, is quoted as saying. “If we saw an 8 percent across-the-board, it would be more impressive, but none of these [daypart] categories are going down.”

Friday night’s opening ceremonies averaged 34.2 million viewers, the largest audience for any television event since the Super Bowl and the biggest audience ever for a non-U.S. Olympic Opening Ceremonies.